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The Murder of Nabil Hasan Al-Quaety - by Zachary Boyce

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    • Zachary Boyce at Pima Community College
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    Between the years of 2019 and 2020, 100 journalists died and among them was Nabil Hasan Al-Quaety, a married father of four, who was murdered outside his home in Aden in a planned assassination on June 2nd, 2020 (CPJ). He was only 34 years old and worked as a freelance journalist and photographer and was working with the French public broadcaster Agence France-Presse or AFP. During his time in Yemen, the capital city Sana’a was under control of Houthi Rebels who are allied with Iran. Both the Yemeni Government and the Southern Transitional Council (STC) are fighting against the Houthi Rebels (Yemeni Journalist). In August of 2019 the STC turned on the Yemeni government and Seized the city of Aden where Al-Quaety lived (CPJ). Al-Quaety had supported the STC and was criticized by the members of Islah, a bloc of the Yemeni Government, who also accused him of being funded by the United Arab Emirates who was working with the STC (Yemeni Journalist). His assassination was the first targeted killing of any media worker since 2015 when al-Qaida killed a journalist in Sana’a (Yemeni Journalist).

    Before Al-Quaety had been murdered he had traveled to Yemen in 2015 to cover the Civil War that started in 2014 between the Yemeni Government and the Houthi Armed Movement as well as the humanitarian crisis caused by the conflict of the war (JPost). He had been awarded for his reports on the civil war in 2016 by Britain’s Rory Peck Awards so he was a notable figure when it came to reporting on the civil war in Yemen. Unfortunately his killers escaped and have not been found to this day even with Yemen’s Government calling for an investigation (Al-Monitor). The first group who is suspicious of the crime would be the Houthi Rebels who are against the STC and Yemen Government although it is also possible, albeit unlikely, Yemen’s Government themselves are behind it due to the group Islah, who is a part of the Yemeni Government, disliking Al-Quaety’s support for STC who had control over the city he lived in.

    Following his death the Global News Director Phil Chetwynd of the news agency AFP who Al-Quaety was working for said, “We are shocked by the senseless killing of a courageous journalist doing his job despite threats and intimidation. Through his work with AFP over the past five years Nabil had helped to show a global audience the full horror of the conflict in Yemen. The quality of his work had been widely recognised. The thoughts of everybody at AFPare with his wife and children today” (AFP). His wife has not spoken in public or to any reporters about her husband. The undersecretary at Yemen's information ministry, Najib Ghallab, stated, "We condemn this crime against Quaety, whose work was to cover events and facts in pictures.It seems that his work has caused outrage among some extremist parties” (AFP). Lastly the STC, who Al-Quaety supported, has this to say, "It is with great sadness and pain that the STC mourns the martyrdom of the war photographer Quaety in a treacherous terrorist operation" (AFP).

    The death of Nabil Hasan Al-Quaety was tragic and a severe loss for many. The pain that his wife and children must feel is unimaginable. Al-Quaety was an amazing journalist and put his life on the line to report on the civil war in Yemen. He knew the dangers of his job and even after a brush with death in 2019 when he survived a deadly Houthi drone attack on al-Anadair base while he was covering a military parade he still continued to report on the war and stand up to the ones who cowardly killed him (Al-Mashareq). We need more journalists like Al-Quaety and the loss of any of them is tragic. His reports on the war for nearly 5 years were crucial in spreading awareness about the war and supporting the people of Yemen through the tough times. He will be missed.

    Works Cited

    CPJ “Nabil Hasan Al-Quaety.” Committee to Protect Journalists, 16 Sept. 2020, https://cpj.org/data/people/nabil-hasan-al-quaety/

    AFP.com. “AFP Contributor Nabil Hasan Al-Quaety Killed in Yemen.” AFP.com, 2 June 2020,https://www.afp.com/en/inside-afp/af...y-killed-yemen

    “Yemeni Journalist Who Backed Independence for South Is Shot Dead.” The Guardian, GuardianNews and Media, 3 June 2020, https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...h-is-shot-dead

    “Gunmen Kill Yemeni Journalist in Aden.” Al-Monitor 3 June 2020 https://www.al-monitor.com/originals...an-quaety.html

    “Journalist Nabil Hasan Al-Quaety Killed in Yemen.” Al, Al-Mashareq, 3 June 2020,https://almashareq.com/en_GB/article.../03/feature-03

    “Photojournalist and AFP Contributor Nabil Hasan Al-Quaety Killed in Yemen.” The JerusalemPost | JPost 3 June 2020 https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/ph...n-yemen-630117

    This page titled The Murder of Nabil Hasan Al-Quaety - by Zachary Boyce is shared under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Zachary Boyce at Pima Community College.